DDP Advantage?

[mark4man]

Now hitting the mastering stage on my CD; & was thinking about buying Gear Pro...which is an audio mastering app that can take an assembled track list & create a DDP image.

My replication house doesn't do FTP...they accept DDP on exabyte (1/4") tape & CD-R. They also accept CD-DA on CD-R.

I'm not going out & spending 2 grand on an exabyte machine...

...So, is there a real advantage (in quality) to burning a DDP image to CD-R...as opposed to burning my red book track list to CD-R (using my existing mastering app: WaveLab)?

I'm thinking that the drawback here is the CD-R medium, which is subject to block errors. Digital audio is written in a continuous data stream, just as DDP is...the possibility for errors comes from the CD-R, right?

My burner is Plextor Premium, which does a great burn & sports industry standard error checking software...so now I'm not sure I want to spend $400 on Gear Pro, if I can get the same quality from CD-DA on CD-R.

Is there something I'm missing, here?

Is there still an advantage to sending in a DDP image on CD-R over digital audio on the same medium?

Thanks,

mark4man